


The Thunderer

by igrab



Category: Greek and Roman Mythology
Genre: M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-16
Updated: 2010-04-16
Packaged: 2017-10-08 23:46:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/80731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/igrab/pseuds/igrab
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>So he tried to tell himself that he was only doing his duty, but it even sounded hollow to his own ears.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Thunderer

He kept telling himself that he had good reasons for following Prince Ganymede - that it was his job to protect him, and he couldn't protect him if he wasn't in sight. That's what he _told_ himself.  
But there just might be a _slight_ difference between tailing him on a hunting expedition in the mountains - where the trees were full of wolves and boars and all sorts of potentially dangerous animals - and folding himself into the servant's corridors under the balcony wall, with the small windows overlooking the library. They were not only within the walls of Dardania - and Zeus had to admit that it was an exceptionally peaceful city, and shot a dirty look towards Apollo's temple - but they were inside the _castle_ walls, not three corridors away from Ganymede's own room.  
So he tried to tell himself that he was only doing his duty, but it even sounded hollow to his own ears.  
The _real_ reason - and Zeus finally decided he was man enough to admit it, if only to himself - that he was watching him so closely is because he was with his new tutor. _Ilarus_. His lip curled just to even _think_ the name, and he forced a tight clamp on his power. There had been too many thunderstorms in Troas, and Zeus hadn't cared, until Ganymede had sighed that it would be a very bad year for crops, and - _Demeter was going to kill him_.  
The thunderstorms stopped then, for the most part, but the damage was done. Zeus resigned himself to hiding in his mortal form for a great deal of time longer, and doing the best he could to help.  
But Ilarus made him rethink everything about the dubious detriments of calling up another storm. He was tall and handsome, dark-haired, intelligent, and he told stories of the world beyond Troy's walls - stories that lit a fire behind Ganymede's eyes, and another, utterly different one in the black depths of Zeus's heart. He wasn't allowed to put that look there. He wasn't _allowed_ to make eyes at the prince, to smile at him, to let him know in all the unsubtle and cunning ways that he wanted him.  
And Ganymede wasn't allowed to want him back.  
\+ _the evening previous_ +  
Ganymede slowly worked the comb through his hair, picking out each individual knot, giving it the same loving care and attention that many women reserved only for their children. But then, he _was_ quite fond of his hair, and the blood was humming in his veins and he absolutely had to look perfect tomorrow. Everything had to be perfect.  
His hands were trembling and they caught on a difficult snarl - he gasped as the motion tugged painfully at his scalp, but he couldn't sort himself out enough to slow down. Then, there was a gentle pressure on his wrists - gentle, but strong, and Ganymede sighed back into the touch. _Idaios_.  
"Yes, my lord?"  
He hadn't realized he'd spoken aloud and his cheeks flushed, embarrassed. "I- thank you." He'd only been his manservant for three months - or was it four now? - but Ganymede had never known anyone so able to understand _exactly_ what he needed, when he needed it, and when he'd rather be left alone. So he swallowed his nerves and pride, and let his servant work the smooth shell comb from his nervous fingers, and closed his eyes.  
When fingertips pressed at his scalp in quiet, soothing circles, he felt the words bubble up in his throat, and no power in the world could keep them leashed, not when Idaios was making him limp as a dishrag and equally thoughtful.  
"...Ilarus walked us through the temple district today. He's been to the temple of Zeus at Knossos, did you know?" There was a slight coughing sound from behind him, but he paid it no heed. "Imagine, seeing the very hills that the great god was born on."  
"I'm sure they're just like any hills," Idaios muttered gruffly.  
"Well physically, maybe. But it's the principle of the thing, the history behind it, _knowing_ what has happened. You're very good at this, you know," he added, tilting his head back to peer up at his gray-eyed servant.  
"My lord has very fine hair."  
Ganymede wasn't sure if he meant fine, as in quality, or fine as in - but it really didn't matter, did it, not when those hands felt so nice. "Mmmm. I'm going to leave it down tomorrow. Ilar's eyes kept jumping when it caught the sun- _ow_," he muttered, at a sudden tug.  
"Sorry," the servant said hastily.  
"No, it's fine. 'Dora would say that _beauty is pain_," and he put on a perfect imitation of the fluttering velvet tones of his brother's sweetheart. Idaios chuckled behind him, and he could very nearly feel the vibrations, all along the back of his neck. "You're wonderful. I do worse on a daily basis." A quiet settled between them for a long moment, as Ganymede slowly lost the thread of his thought in the prickling motions of his hair moving. He could almost feel every strand, every connection - weaving and unweaving, and parting for his servant's strong hands.  
"He wants to meet in the library tomorrow," Ganymede whispered, and Idaios went still, and quiet. He pressed back into the hands a little, impatient, but maybe also because he was nervous and Idaios was slowly growing to be the only thing that made him feel safe. "I know what he wants, and I'm not averse, I'm just..."  
A breathy sigh, and then those beautiful fingers were on his scalp again, in a rolling caress that was surely not intended to be anywhere near as sensual as it felt. Ganymede melted utterly into it, nearly purring in the back of his throat. "Do not let him do anything you object to," was all he said, and Ganymede couldn't think, he was all liquid and unraveled.  
But he nodded, slowly, as the words filtered in and arranged themselves into a semblance of order. "Of course not." He was a prince, and he knew his rights. It was just -  
He _wanted_ Ilarus to have good intentions. He wanted to think the best of him. He didn't want to believe that something as stupid as lust could tip the balance of their utterly satisfying intellectual relationship.  
But he wanted, oh he wanted. Idaios and his perfect hands only made it worse, but Ganymede couldn't bring himself to tell him to stop.  
\+ _the library_ +  
He _did_ know that Ilarus had been to the Temple at Knossos, and no, it didn't make it _any_ better knowing he'd been perfectly courteous.  
Zeus pressed his nose to the slit of a window and watched, as the scene unfurled itself between the scroll stacks. The Prince of Troy, wrapped in royal blue with his hair spilling past his shoulders, untrapped, on this day of days - and Ilarus, with his dark eyes and gold rings that he claimed were gifts from faraway kings, for the services of knowledge he'd done for them.  
Zeus hated that he was telling the truth.  
He watched the game begin. It was the man's move, it had to be, and there it was - the pause in their lilting conversation, the brush of fingertips against an unruly curl.  
And now, the boy's. To lean into it, catlike, and beckon with his eyes so blatantly that Zeus shuddered, and curled in tighter on himself.  
He told himself that he was better than this man, that Ganymede deserved patience and courtship and virtue. That he was worth more than a quick fuck in the hills, but the truth was, if he didn't win him over completely - if it could only happen _once_ \- Zeus would never be satisfied. He knew the difference between someone you appreciated and someone you treasured. He knew that people like Ilarus came and went, and people like Ganymede _lasted_.  
It didn't make it any easier to watch as their lips met, as Ilar's fingers slid into his hair and he saw - maybe he imagined it, but no, he knew his Prince's facial expressions too well by now - a slight wince cross the Price's parted lips. Zeus knew what it was. The hairs were catching on his rings, and he wasn't delicate enough, he wasn't perfect. Zeus could be perfect.  
He told himself this.  
The next move was Ganymede's, and it was swift and decisive. He moved forward, pushed Ilarus up against the nearest stack - it rattled, but held - and he pressed up against him, long and lovely, and the kiss became filthy, uneven. Zeus trapped a thumb to his own lips, hard, until he heard the bones creak, because seeing him like this was breaking him apart, piece by piece. The headache of keeping the storm at bay was only tightening - the jealousy burned, and he could only stay put because he'd known this day would come. A day when Ganymede's fingers would touch another man's skin, the day that man would moan and gasp in surprise because they didn't know, they could not have known what the Trojan Prince was capable of. Zeus knew. He'd known it from the moment he'd seen him, that this boy would be the undoing of men.  
Ilarus was trembling head to toe now, one hand gripping the wood shelf to steady himself, the other at Ganymede's back - shaky, as if he didn't know what to do with it, or rather, couldn't _decide_. Ganymede was hitching a leg up around his waist and sliding his tongue along the lines of his neck and gripping and grinding and _purring_, and Zeus _gritted his teeth_. This was beyond jealousy, now, this was pure carnality, roiling through his veins.  
Thunder rolled.  
Ganymede _moaned_.  
Ilar's head snapped up and he watched, wide-eyed, as the sky grew darker. "I don't believe this," he muttered, and there was a hint of despair in his voice, a strangled incredulity. "Another storm?"  
"I love storms," Ganymede muttered in a breathy whisper, and that was _it_, Zeus pressed the heel of his hand to his groin, the other one firmly clamped over his mouth.  
"Well we'll have to make the best of this one, then," Ilarus murmured in return, and the thunder cracked, and lightning flashed.  
It was a vicious cycle. Ganymede responded to the call of the thunder, which made Zeus rock harder into his hand and bite down on his knuckles to keep himself in control. Ilarus responded to Ganymede's enthusiasm, and his cries made Zeus angrier, and the storm raged harder. And with every roll of thunder, Ganymede whimpered.  
Zeus came first.  
It was the messy mindfuck of an image - Ilarus spread over the drafting table, Ganymede straddling his hips, rubbing slow and indecent against him as they kissed, with one of Ilar's hands locked in Ganymede's hair - and the _sound_ he made, a startled, gasping _mewl_ into the hollow of his throat. Zeus came apart. He bit down so hard he drew blood, and it was a double shock then, the pleasure and the pain. He could hear, heartwrenchingly, the sound of Ganymede following. From another man's touch. Another man, and a thunderstorm.  
\+ _later_ +  
Ganymede collapsed into his room as an utter wreck of himself, soaked to the skin and shivering head to toe. "Idaios?" he called, trying very hard not to sound _completely_ pathetic. "I-Idaios..."  
He'd just squeezed his eyes shut and resolved to drying off alone when a warm, clean cloth wrapped around and around his body.  
"My lord," Idaios murmured, an inch away from Ganymede's ear, his presence like a solid tree trunk with its roots sunk in deep. The Prince shuddered, still overstimulated, but he was wetly grateful and after a moment, the man seemed to understand. He didn't have to move at all, then, as Idaios dried him off, rolling him in the clean warmth until it had soaked away every trace of the rain. He didn't have to lift a finger as he peeled the wet clothes from his body and tossed them in a corner. He let himself be carried off, bundled and warm and safe, to his bed, where Idaios slipped him under his covers and lay his hair out in a straggled line across his pillow, where it could dry.  
It was still raining. The thunder had stopped - a short storm, then, and now there was just rain, sweet and gentle, and Ganymede could almost still feel it on his skin - when he'd run out of the library, half-terrified, half-disgusted with himself, and it had felt like the skies had simply opened up around him.  
It cleansed him. Drove whatever madness pleasure had left from his body, but now he felt nothing, nothing at all.  
Idaios sighed, very quietly, and stood to go.  
"Wait-"  
Ganymede hated how wretched he sounded, how weak. He was a Prince of Troy, not a catamite to be coddled and bent and used. But he hadn't behaved particularly Princely today. Princes don't lose control so rashly in public. Princes don't run out on their almost-lovers after doing so.  
Princes don't come to the sound of thunder.  
Idaios, wonderful, wonderful Idaios, didn't question the order or the tone it was given in. He sat at the edge of the bed, seemed to understand that Ganymede needed the closeness, the comfort. He wriggled pale fingers until he could lock them in the very edge of the servant's shirt, and he did no more than smile.  
"Tell me a story," he breathed, for something to say to fill the space.  
"Mmm." A strong arm reached for him, and pulled until Idaios was leaning up against the headboard, with Ganymede's head pillowed in his lap. It was endearing and audacious and he liked it, because it was exactly what he needed right then. Someone warm and breathing, who would not judge him, who would put his hands in his hair without tugging, without expecting more from him - without _unleashing_ something inside of him that Ganymede had only just grown aware of. It was _nice_. "Who is your favorite, of the gods?"  
It should have been a terribly impertinent question, but Ganymede replied instantly. "Zeus." He'd always been his favorite, recent experience with thunderstorms notwithstanding.  
The admission seemed to amuse him, and he felt rather than heard a low chuckle ripple over his skin. "All right. I'll tell you a story of Zeus, then."  
Ganymede made a breathy noise, as hands settled on his scalp and worked in a long circle. "Tell me a story of Zeus and Heracles."  
The hands stopped for a moment, in something like surprise. "Heracles?"  
"Mmhm." Ganymede shifted and turned, until the stroking started up again, and he quieted. "The one with the giants."  
"Why that story," came the question, but the Prince knew that Idaios knew that it was his favorite. Zeus choosing Heracles, to stand by his side, to fight off the earth giants attacking Olympus. There was a prophecy, and some other things, but what Ganymede loved best had nothing to do with that.  
He yawned, and turned his face into Idaios's hand, so he could murmur the truth between his perfect fingers. "...He sounds almost human then."


End file.
